Report by David. Photos by Marie de Lutz. Summer dates for SpokenWord: Mondays 25th June, 9th and 23rd July, 6th and 20th August.

Jason knew an anxious joy on the threshold with the horde of hopeful dreamers. Another world is possible. Kate apparently died in 1871. Crocodiles can’t roll cigs. The taste of toasted almonds. Amelia’s light freckles lurking. Madeleine, how swiftly you’ll get nowhere. Can we time the perfect breath?

Fucking spiders everywhere!!!!!! Pablo evoked groans of disgust from the room. If I told you the truth with a French accent, would you believe me?

 Sonnet for young American poets (Patrick Kilmartin)

Young poets step up but hone your versed craft,
for words worthy of greats, not late night rough drafts.
These journal entries that feel ways about stuff
but forget about form while spilling their guts.
Such undisciplined art cannot long be sustained
by spectators ignored and un-entertained,
thus unbridled indulgence and strained sentiment
evoke nothing when heard but listener contempt.

Writing must struggle, to be fresh, to be lauded,
not used as excuse for a gap year abroad…
But by all means write, pursue truth unafraid,
just recall what Yeats said on learning your trade.

Some concision, tautness and structure please,
‘cause no-one but you likes poems lacking these.

Caroline talked back in tongues. Thinks about white spaces. Pat and Patrick featured in The Lutemaker, Part 3 aka If you’re feckless, go to the feck shop. Michele set the world on fire. Athar saw ribbons on the trees… pieces of him we sort and tag but never see again. Danielle abridged the Kugelmass Episode by Woody Allen. Pat, you are the oh-so-bittersweetness of the lime in my mojito.

Alberto dazzled through my irises. A young senior citizen. What to do with my useless self? Murder brought le coeur qui parle… sounds like an Agatha Christie title! Tous marche à l’inverse… Richard drank the Liffey dry. Evan appeared with a hoard of cats, and pyromaniacs. Chris is saving the world in a 6th floor apartment, asking for a post-postmodernism…

To close – Patrick Kilmartin’s rewrite of Yeats that prefaced his Sonnet for young American poets:

“Bourgeois brat Yanks please learn your trade,
don’t recite that which is not well made.
Scorned be this new wave, a growing malaise
that write raw rambling thoughts yet expect all our praise.
Children of Emerson have you forgotten
the traditions you’re part of, the shadows you trod on?”
 

-W.B. Yeats (excerpt from alternate version of Under Ben Bulben, Part V)